The present invention relates to rotationally driven sweepers, especially those which are battery operated and whose rotated elements contact a floor surface.
Electric-powered sweepers with extensions from a rotating, cylindrical drum are routinely used to sweep dirt particles directly from a floor surface into a closed container while traversing a floor area. The extensions of such sweepers must contact a floor or rug surface and make a brushing impact with that surface with sufficient force to effectively cause the elevation and forceful trajectory of all dirt and waste particles the extension encounters. Substantial electrical power is required in prior art designs to accomplish this function. Well known prior art designs of sweepers and vacuum cleaners mount longitudinal rows of flexible, straight bristles on a cylinder rotated at high speed. The bristle ends must impact upon and sweep a floor surface at high speed. While the bristle structure is beneficial in that fabrication has become inexpensive, the straight bristle design is impractical for battery powered sweepers due to the relatively high power requirements needed to cause bristle rotation and deformation on impact with a floor surface.
Although self-contained battery powered electric vacuum cleaners are well known, they can only be used for small area cleaning because they have too little stored power to clean any significant area due to their inherent high power requirements. There is a need for a sweeper design which accomplishes effective sweeping with low power requirements.